Hackers release Froome, Wiggins medical reports

“We don’t approve of what hackers do, but what they’ve done is definitely of interest to the worldwide community, especially the sports community”, the Russian president said, as cited by RIA Novosti.

“The IOC Medical, Legal and IT departments will continue to communicate closely with WADA to investigate the background to this serious issue”.

The exemptions are issued to allow athletes to use banned substances due to medical reasons – Fancy Bears claim these are “licences for doping”.

In particular, the second trove of names includes Dagmara Wozniak, an American sabre fencer who represented the United States at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The athletes, from five different countries, had permission from sports or anti-doping bodies to use medications that would otherwise be banned for use in competition.

The agency’s independent McLaren report, released in July, said that Russians had swapped positive doping samples for clean ones during the 2014 Sochi Olympics, with the support of the Russian secret service.

Froome had already spoken publicly about being granted TUEs twice, in 2013 and 2014.

The second batch includes a total of 25 athletes, including 10 from the United States, five from Germany, five from the United Kingdom, one from the Czech Republic, one from Denmark, one from Poland, one from Romania, and one from Russian Federation.

Also on the list is Kathleen Baker, an American swimmer who won one gold medal and one silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

WADA has said it believes the hackers gained access to its anti-doping administration and management system (ADAMS) via an IOC-created account for the Rio Games. “We condemn this criminal activity and have asked the Russian government to do everything in its power to make it stop”.

An unacceptable breach of medical confidentiality was how International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach described the recent string of leaks by the Russian cyber-espionage group Tsar Team, also known as Fancy Bears.

A group allegedly from Russian Federation calling themselves “Fancy Bears” recently hacked into the World Anti Doping Agency’s database and released the files on their website.

The potential scale of the hack was laid bare after those behind it threatened to publish records from more athletes in the coming days in an escalation of hostilities sparked by Russia’s exile from world sport. She and her husband, a former official with the Russian national anti-doping agency, are now living at an undisclosed location in North America.

“Our cyclists have sent a letter of the IOC, WADA and UCI where they demand the setting-up of an global commission to scrutinise Rodchenkov’s claims cited in the report by Richard McClaren and exclusion of Rodchenkov’s evidence from the report if the experts don’t recognise the claims as grounded ones”, sports lawyer Artyom Patsev, who represents the athletes, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

The hackers, who have set up their own website, have not responded to messages seeking comment. “Stay tuned for new leaks.”.